1,000 signatures reached
To: Secretary of State for Education
Make Racial Literacy Training Statutory For All Teachers
We are demanding action from the government to ensure teachers are given the highest standards of training in this area.
We strongly believe racial literacy training should be a statutory part of initial teacher training programmes and the mandatory safeguarding training all teachers must undertake.
What do we mean by racial literacy training in education?
{Including but not limited to;}
-Knowledge of the historical roots of racism and how racism shows up in the education system from the classroom, playground, staffroom and policy.
-An understanding of the pedagogical practice of anti-racism within the classroom including the study of key language such as adultification, race as a social construct, islamophobia, anti-semitism and the model minority myth.
-The ability to confidently use strategies to deal with racism within the classroom and the wider school community
Why is this important?
Research shows us that students in the UK are regularly witnessing and experiencing racism within their schools. This is also evident from recent headlines and news stories which range from hair discrimination, higher rates of exclusion for students from the global majority, issues of adultification as seen in the case of Child Q and most recently the disturbing video of a black child being viciously assaulted outside their school.
One of the major ways we can ensure the safety of our students is to equip school leaders and staff with a basic understanding of the issues that face employees and students from the global majority in education. We already know that schools leaders and teachers are overwhelmingly white so this is an area in which they need time to study, reflect and understand how not being racialised as white will give you a very different experience and perspective of the education system in this country.
Did you know:
-More than 60,000 racist incidents were recorded in UK schools over a five-year period.
-95% of young Black people report that they have heard and witnessed the use of racist language at school.
-Almost 90% of teachers are not trained to prevent racism in schools
-70% of young Black people have felt the need to change their hair to be “more professional” at work or school.
-92.5% of headteachers are White British with 86% having an all white leadership team.
-Ethnic minority candidates are less likely to be accepted onto teacher training than their white counterparts
